The healthcare sector is improving efficiencies due to the surge in usage of robotics and AI in medical processes and other operations
Mobile robots are becoming increasingly popular across different business sectors as they are used to assist work processes and even accomplish tasks that are impossible or dangerous for humans. Due to their advanced technological systems, mobile robots can be used for surveillance, planetary exploration, patrolling, emergency and rescue operations, reconnaissance, petrochemical applications, industrial automation, construction, entertainment, as museum guides, for personal services and intervention in extreme environment, transportation, medical care as well as many other industrial and non-industrial applications.
Hence, mobile robotics is one of the fastest-expanding fields of scientific research. And now, more than ever, the Coronavirus crisis has highlighted the way we can optimise the use of mobile robotics and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to successfully fight any pandemic. Given the highly infectious nature of the Coronavirus and the consequential need for social distancing, companies, both large and small, have realised that robots can provide contact-free alternatives to healthcare workers. Hospitals are devising ways to use robots to minimise the presence of healthcare staff in the Covid-care facilities. Hence, a large number of hospitals across the globe are currently using robots for rendering services such as automated testing, supporting public safety and public works, decontaminating hospitals and public spaces, ensuring delivery services, maintaining patient database and diagnosing diseases.
Multi-purpose robots are also used for temperature checking, as dispensers, for patient registration entry, delivering medication, food and so on.The aim is to quickly deploy telehealth technology during the current outbreak to allow for curbside screening of patients as enabling remote screening will reduce the contact time between patients and frontline healthcare workers, who are critical in the fight against the pandemic.
Applications of robotics are playing a major role in laboratory diagnostics services, too. However, apart from automation of laboratory and testing services, robots can also automate manual operations that are labour-intensive, time-consuming and repetitive in order to reduce the burden on frontline healthcare workers. They can play an important role in high-tech applications, too, such as performing complex surgeries like the latest Elon Musk’s Neuralink chip implantation surgery, other neuro surgeries, cutting bones and so on.
AI is transforming our lifestyles by mimicking human intelligence for solving various issues. With technological advancement, AI is getting increasingly sophisticated at doing what humans do, but more efficiently, rapidly and at a lower cost. AI in healthcare provides an upper hand undoubtedly over traditional analysing and clinical decision-making techniques.
A few of the roles played by AI during the pandemic relate to early warnings and alerts, prediction and detection of outbreak of diseases, real-time disease monitoring worldwide, analysis and visualisation of spreading trends, prediction of infection rate and infection trend, rapid decision-making to identify effective treatments, study and analysis of the pathogens and drug discovery. During this time, AI diagnostic tools are used to distinguish COVID-19 from other types of pneumonia within seconds by analysing the patients’ chest CT scan images.
Newer models hold great potential to relieve the pressure of frontline radiologists, improve early diagnosis, isolation and treatment, and thus contribute to the control of the epidemic. Medical robotics can be considered as the application of robotics technology to healthcare to diagnose and treat diseases, or to correct, restore or modify a body function or a body part. With the help of medical robotics, surgeons can carry out operations more precisely and in a less invasive way. Surgical robotics segment dominated the medical robotics market in terms of revenue in 2019 and rehabilitation robots are gaining popularity due to the rising ageing population subject to increasing physical disabilities. It is predicted that hospital and pharmacy robots will contribute around 12 per cent to the global medical robotics market by 2025.
Due to the major use of automation processes, the robotics industry is reaching major heights by contributing to every sector of the economy and working as a lever to reduce human efforts. The healthcare sector has improved efficiencies because of it.
(The writer is Co-Founder, Addverb Technologies)